Phyllis Bottome

“ She didn’t put it to herself quite like that--she only wished she hadn’t had to leave her fox terrier at home.
The moment passed and other richer moments took its place.
Love was just--what without expecting it Rose had most desired. No one could have expected any one to be as wonderful as Léon. He spilt his soul into his passion, his ardor filled their hours, there was no way in which he did not color her life. She felt herself like some poor common pebble transformed into purple and rose color by the touch of the sea. ”

“ Nibaud's villa stood high above a sea of blossoming orchards. A rampart of softly rising, far blue hills was between it and the gash across the face of France. It was a space of peace and golden fields; only occasionally, between the clear and piercing songs of the spring birds, sounded the distant steady booming of the guns.
Mon Plaisir was an achievement both of beauty and luxury. Nothing was irregular in it. Everything ministered punctually and without visible effort to the comfort and pleasure of its inhabitants. The cooking was exactly what the general liked. ”

“ The music in his brain sang a different story to him. Gabrielle was a child at heart, she was like the soft unfolding of the spring.
It was easy to think of her on a night full of stars. He knew that Paris could not count for her any more than for him. It was a mere glittering screen between them and their joy.
Jean flew up his steep, dark stairs in the Rue Lalo, and found Margot tidying up his things. The most fatal mistake a woman can make, in the eyes of a young man, is to be present when he is thinking of somebody else. ”

“ After she had gone, Stella opened the window, and leaned out into the garden. She could see nothing but the soft darkness, sometimes massed in the thickness of the yew-hedges, and sometimes tenuous and spread out over the empty spaces of the lawns.
The air blew fresh upon her face, full of sweetness and the promise of life. Stella told herself bitterly that nature was cruel; it let strong young things die, and if that didn't matter (and she sometimes thought dying didn't) , nature did worse: it maimed and held youth down. But nothing in her responded to the thought that nature was cruel. ”

“ Venice lay behind us a dazzling line, with towers of gold against the blue lagoon. All at once a breeze sprang up from the sea; the small, feathery islands seemed to shake and quiver, and, like leaves driven before a gale, those flocks of colored butterflies, the fishing-boats, ran in before the storm. Far away to our left stood the ancient tower of Altinum, with the island of Burano a bright pink beneath the towering clouds. To our right, and much nearer, was a small cypress-covered islet. One large umbrella-pine hung close to the sea, and behind it rose the tower of the convent church. ”

“ There is a point where a group of rocks run out into the sea. At the rise of the tide they are cut off from the shore, and at the tide's height they are completely engulfed. It was too windy to paint, but Geoffrey felt as if he could watch forever the oncoming of the waves; he loved the feathered flight of them, as the tops seemed to bend above the solid green and then drew back, and were swallowed up, only to fringe it once more in a wild, breaking whiteness as they roared past the black rocks and flung themselves in heaps upon the shore. ”

“ This one you have here, this Fanny, she is like the Venus of the Terme in Rome. You know her perhaps, headless, alas! but with an expression of the body as soft as a south wind. You remember her, Geoffrey?"
"Oh, yes, I remember her all right," said Geoffrey, crossly. "Let's leave the damned thing alone and come and have tea. I beg your pardon, Miss Loomis! It's not that I don't admire your work; it's—it's—"
"It's that you admire the work of nature more?" laughed Dupin. "Be careful, my good friend. Nature has already supplied you with what to admire." ”

“ She spoke as if a fortnight was a long time. Then Winn kissed her; he did it with extraordinary gentleness, on the side of her cheek and on her wet curls covered with snow.
"You're such a baby," he said half to himself; "so it isn't a bit of use your being as old as the hills the other part of the time. There are just about a million reasons why you shouldn't stay, you know."
"Oh, reasons!" said Claire, making a face at anything so trivial as a reason. Then she became very grave, and said, "I want to stay, Winn; of course I know what you mean. But there's Maurice; it isn't as if I were alone. ”

“ And all the brilliant, sunny months of May and June Gervase was good!
"He is like a little boy on the eve of his first communion," the concierge remarked to the friendly Americans. "It is a goodness so spotless that one wonders if even the good God is not a little relieved when a smut falls. It is like this weather that never breaks—a peace before a storm."
It was a hot night in July when the storm broke. The moon rose early and flooded all the quarter; it flooded the studio of Monsieur Gervase and made him as mad as his light heart. ”

“ Stella sat upon a wooden float; it made a luxurious seat for her opposite the drifting swans. She felt as if all her thoughts at last were free. There was no one in sight; old and dignified houses leaned toward the water-front: but for all the life that inhabited them, they might have been the ghosts of houses. Nothing stirred, but sometimes up the river a sea-gull, on level wings, with wary eyes, wandered above the watery highway, challenging the unaccustomed small spaces of the sky.
Stella wished for the first time that Julian were dead. ”

“ As far as life was concerned, Miss Strickland was a strong swimmer, and Elsie was a drowning man; her hopeless, helpless eyes said it. She had this one desire, this one strange, pitiful claim upon the universe, and having made it, she was prepared to drown. She said no more. She did not cry; she sat and trembled on her music-stool, looking dumbly at Miss Strickland's face.
Miss Strickland hesitated; she had always worked on a principle before: girls below a certain standard were Miss Saunder's pupils; girls above it were hers. It is not easy to break a principle at one's own expense. ”

“ Léonie sighed.
"You are a man of iron," she murmured, "so fierce, so irresistible, like your nation!"
"That is an advantage for you," urged the general; "I shall be the stronger friend."
"Pardon me, Monsieur," said Léonie; "a lover is not a friend."
"An ally, then, if you prefer it," said the general. "You are safe with me, at any rate—as long as our interests are the same."
She was silent for a moment, as if she were considering the quality of this security.
"Ah," she said at last, "but how many other women have trusted you? How many, perhaps, trust you even now—in vain? ”

“ The rain came on again, and the short day was closing before Jean realized that the sudden stream of grey houses was after all not going to break again into empty fields, but was Paris herself, the great insignificant fringe of the world’s enigma, the city where there is most pleasure and least happiness—the cleverest thought and the vainest action—where more ideas are born and more perish in their tarnished bloom than any other place on earth. ”

“ Ives a small green flap of land runs out into the sea. It is known as the Island, and beyond it the coast spreads, bleak and wild, free of bungalows and railway lines, a land of elfin enchantment, meager and rock-strewn, the haunt of old secrets, a dumb, close-lipped companion of the sea.
Geoffrey had chosen his studio in one of the narrow, cliff-like streets overlooking the Island. He told Fanny by a post-card when he expected her, and when she came he painted her. He was the type of man who, in being agreeable to one woman, is likely to be disagreeable to all the rest. ”

“ He turned to Rose. “And you, Mademoiselle,” he asked, “were you under the impression that you saw me?”
“It certainly did look exactly like you,” Mrs. Pinsent murmured, looking rather troubled. “I particularly noticed the hat.”
“Lots of people wear hats like Monsieur Legier,” Rose said, looking away from Léon.
She was the only one of the party he finally failed to convince.
He did more than admire her then, he respected her. There is no taste so perfect as that which permanently conceals a fact which is awkward for others.
Rose concealed it, but she paid for her good taste by her tears. ”

“ When Jean turned towards her she put down her cigarette, her lips began to curve, a little flame of merriment sprang into her blue, untroubled eyes. She threw back her head and laughed aloud; the music of her laughter shook Jean’s heart; it was like the liquid leaping notes of a blackbird in the spring. She laughed till the tears came into her eyes; then she grew grave again.
“And now, Jean,” she said, “we must have this affair out, you and I. Alas! alas! why will men think a great big stick an inducement in getting what they want? ”

“ Estelle said, "Oh, dear Lady Staines, believe me—with all my heart!"
Lady Staines didn't believe her, but she smiled good-humoredly. "Yes, yes, my dear, I know!" she said. "But how much heart have you got? You see his happiness and yours depend on that. The woman who marries a Staines ought to have a good deal of heart and all of it ought to be his."
Estelle put on an air of pretty dignity. "I have never loved any one before," she asserted with serene untruthfulness (she felt sure this fact couldn't be proved against her) , "and Winn believes in my heart." ”

“ This unique and quiet people, in their enmity with form, had chosen of all forms the most resilient. They had made in the heart of London a picture, and a place of peace for death.
There was no sense of desolation in the silent field; only the sunshine, the old walls, and the green emptiness. It might have been the grass-grown citadel of Tusculum spread out at Stella's feet, it was a spot so acquainted with the air, with solitude, and with a nameless history. ”

“ Lestrange,” said Anastasia, suddenly sitting up and fixing him with her eyes, “I’m not going to talk to you about your son much. I’ll say this, and then I’ll leave the subject alone. He’s not like you. I guess he’s like that picture you’ve got on the mantelpiece--the face is selfish, tyrannical, weak and mean. Hush! I see you’re going to tell me she’s dead. I know she’s dead, and Edith’s alive. She’s alive! How long are you going to keep the living woman buried and the dead woman taking all her share of life? How long is Edith to play second fiddle to a memory which isn’t even true? ”

“ The general straightened himself, and stood up; he looked over the moonlit garden, and ceased to see the flowers.
The white fields of the orchards below him changed to darker, sodden fields, torn up and broken, where no blossoms lay; only the flower of all the youth of France.
Léonie came to him and laid her hand softly upon his shoulder.
"Now," she said, "I am a Frenchwoman; I am ignorant of war, but I have been very patient. When will England strike? My friends tell me she is letting us stand and bleed ourselves white to save herself. ”

“ It was the hour when Paris awoke; rich, expensive, passionate Paris, and launched itself into swift, tireless motors, racing to and fro through the transient pleasure of the night. The Champs Élysées stretched before him like a coil of swiftly flashing jewels. Fire and speed, and the gay faculty of easy living, flamed its message home to the world. It was to this great stream that Madame Torialli belonged—belonged, that is, by birth, by position, by success; but Jean no longer [Pg 294] believed that she shared its life; the gay world was such a small affair. ”

“ But you're not right about not loving you, Stella, that's worse than pride; loving you makes it impossible. I can't take the risk for you. I'll do any other mortal thing you want, but not that!"
"Julian," asked Stella in a low voice, "do you think I am a human being?"
"Well, no!" said Julian. "Since you ask me, more like a fairy or an elf or something. Why?"
"Because you're not treating me as if I were," said Stella, steadily. "Human beings have a right to their own risks. They know their own minds, they share the dangers of love." ”